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da??in was born to Viradatta and Gauri in a family of priestly scholarsabout 1300 years ago. He lived in Kanchi, near modern Chennai, duringthe reigns of the Pallava kings Paramesvara Varman I and NarasimhaVarman II in the period c. 650–750 ce.
Da??in has been a celebrated name in classical Sanskrit literatureas a novelist, poet and pioneering literary theorist. His work wasknown as far apart as ninth-century Kashmir to tenth-century SriLanka and thirteenth-century Tibet. Apart from Dasa KumaraCharitam, he authored Kavyadarsa, an epic poem now known onlythrough quotation.
aditya narayan dhairyasheel haksar was born in Gwalior and educatedat the Doon School and the universities of Allahabad and Oxford. Awell-known translator of Sanskrit classics, he has also had adistinguished career as a diplomat, serving as Indian high commissionerto Kenya and the Seychelles, minister to the United States, andambassador to Portugal and Yugoslavia. Haksar’s translations fromthe Sanskrit include Hitopadesa, Simhasana Dvatrimsika, The ShatteredThigh and Other Plays and Subhashitavali, all published as PenguinClassics. He has also compiled A Treasury of Sanskrit Poetry.
